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“Down to my last vestiges of this. I’ve had this tea for almost a year now; I’m surprised I held onto it this long. It was the first aged oolong I ever tried. Can’t say I recognize...”
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“Interesting tea. Earthy, reminiscing of Humus, but not too Earthy. The description of Bell Peppers above is Perfect! I would say the notes of Bell Peppers is the prominent feature of this...”
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“I had this one saved from the #OolongTimeAgo aged tea buy, as i’m a fan of Dongfang Meiren/Oriental Beauty, and this one is a year older than I actually am, so I’ve been very interested...”
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From J-TEA

This aged Eastern Beauty was originally produced for export over 30 years ago. It was a tea that was to be sold to foreign markets. Some of this tea stayed behind and it has developed over time. Now there are medicinal flavors as well as some fungal undertones. The tea has everything that a good aged oolong should have, but the leaf appearance is not the most desirable. Other than the leaf appearance, this tea is spectacular. Leave it up to us, at J-TEA, to bring this tea to its intended destination. No good tea will be left behind.

9 Tasting Notes

Down to my last vestiges of this. I’ve had this tea for almost a year now; I’m surprised I held onto it this long. It was the first aged oolong I ever tried. Can’t say I recognize any remnants of its Oriental Beauty heritage…but it’s still quite fantastic in its own right. The Taiwanese measure tea by the overall sensation, not just taste. And with this one, I can see why.

At first, on initial taste, the aged nature of it is a little oft-putting. But done with short steeps over a period of minutes, it lends something unique and wonderfully medicinal. Oh, and I happen to like the taste of “ancient Buddhist calm”. I can dig it.

I’m at the start of the busiest day at work I’ve had in awhile, and I needed a li’l happy juice calm. Already on my second mug.

I already have brain issues…would be easy to do. I have a 1998 puerh and laoshan white which are my instant party in a cup tea’s. Most puerhs mello out my fibromyalgia symptoms in the brain which transfers to relief in my body. I wish I could work with a researcher on this.

Preparation

The dry leaves smell like compost to me. I also smell wood chips, mushrooms, minerals, frozen soil, and dried manure. Hopefully the brewed leaves are better.

Steeped 5 minutes and it tasted like slightly salty stale water. Decided to dump this and consider it a rinse.

Steep 1: ~5 minutes (tasted at 3 minutes and it wasn’t very flavourful), boiling water
The liquid smells like compost, moldy fruit, and soil. It reminds me a lot of a brown paper bag that has been left too damp for a few days and starts to grow mold. The brew is a medium orange colour and the leaves have expanded to more than twice their original size. Had to dump this out because I couldn’t drink it. The mold taste was too gross for me.

Steep 2: 3 minutes in boiling water
Tastes like composting fruit peels and mold. WHY? I’m guessing this tea was heavily fermented but has not been allowed to air out enough.

Steep 3: 4 minutes luke warm water as a last-ditch effort to see if I could drink this at all. Nope, I’ve had to dumpout all four cups.

I will not be trying this again as a western brew, but will allow it to air out for a few weeks and will then try it gongfu style with shorter steeps. Hopefully that tastes better, because this has been the worst tea I’ve ever tried thus far. I’m thinking it is my batch rather than the tea itself, but it tastes like it is made out of mold and decaying compost.

It is super weak when steeped for less time (I tried it at 15 seconds, 1 minute, and 3 minutes), but in the future I will do less water + shorter steeps. Most of my oolongs are brewed for much shorter times (never more than 2 minutes, usually 1 minute for an average sized mug). I also get lots of steeps out of them that way. This tea was just not working as a short steep, but I think it is my sample rather than the this tea.

Update: Just tried it again using 75 mL water with 30 second steeps and it tasted more minerally and like mold or mushrooms, but I wouldn’t say it is better. I think this is just not the tea for me. I really like forest floor kind of earthy, but I don’t like mushrooms so the fungus flavour isn’t working for me. I still have a portion of it left though. I will probably let it air out in a larger airy bag in my tea cabinet and try it again in a few months to see if that gets rid of some of the flavour. Maybe by then I will have acquired a taste for aged teas more.

I had this one saved from the #OolongTimeAgo aged tea buy, as i’m a fan of Dongfang Meiren/Oriental Beauty, and this one is a year older than I actually am, so I’ve been very interested to know how it tastes :)

Decided to go gongfu with this one & glad I did. The aroma from the gaiwan was old stored sheng & leafy piles of sticks & medicinal notes & forest floor/earth.

The taste was very aged, like an old sheng but less fruity and more woody. It seems to have been stored very well (although I dont actually know how the storage would affect an OB, i’m just going by sheng) & I really digged the mellow complexity of it. I was tasting different things in there but unfortunately they were covered over by this aged taste which was the most prominent over the 10 steeps or so I gave this tea.

Cha Qi was nice, didnt get any jitters and felt calmed.

I was searching for any spicy or honey notes, for some reason I thought they might get somehow pronounced like the stonefruit in pu but Dongfang Meiren doesnt have that sour fruitiness in the first place that enables the changes over time. There was an interesting aftertaste which at times was almost fruity but mostly it was aged woody notes.

An interesting tea for sure, glad to have experienced it! Thanks to LP for organising things as he always does, and thanks to TeaExplorer for joining with me to be able to gift this one to the group :)

Preparation

Somehow my review for this didn’t post and I just noticed while updating my cupboard…

Anyways, this is clearly one exceptionally stored tea. Being that I am not a fan of OB, that is some strong words. This taste like a light version of the 90’s red mark sheng from W2T; not even a slight exaggeration. This is just a beautiful tea all around that provides some nice notes that I am unable to describe to anyone who hasn’t drank a 20’year sheng (which I can say this is like the 98 mark as well).
I don’t suggest many teas because I know how important money and spending is, but out of all the aged oolong I’ve had (beside the 89’ from Tea Urchin)…. I highly suggest buying some of this. You won’t find such a beautifully stored and aged OB that brews at such ease with such the flavor profile that this has.
I’d love to be proved wrong as I always love me some new tea :)

I wish I had the Pu-Erh sampler you gave to remember if I have that or not. I’m still on the border with most Pu-Erh’s so far. Megan’s Gold and Moonlight Sonata are the only ones that are on or past loved, but they are both blends and one is technically considered as a white tea. Perhaps I’ll ask for a sample in the next time I buy from J-Tea…which will be a while. The ounce of Drunken Dragon was the only thing I got from my first order. Should have asked for some samples then. Otherwise, a lot of the teas are outside my price range.

:) And this time, you’re getting better tea. I was debating if I wanted to throw in the Indian Marigold or not since you would probably have the exact same reaction that I did, and because I vanilla’d the HELL out of it. Anyway, would you be interested in some of the Eco-Cha Dong Ding (which is kinda similar to the Buffalo but more chestnut-y and cashew like) and the WP Moonlight Sonata?

Thank you Andrew for a chance to try this one! Well, I’m still having a hard time getting into aged teas. I’m getting the same ash-bark-dirt flavor from the other aged oolong I had, only that one had more cherry notes. This one is mega herbal. J-Tea’s description is accurate: fungal, root like, herbal, medicinal, and similar to sarsaparilla. As it cools down, it’s peppery. I’m definitely feeling the chi though…or I had too much tea. ’Cause you know. Habits.

I still need to try more aged teas (Aged Bao Zhong 1984, you’re my main target if you do taste like almond milk and wine). I would drink this one more for energy or even medicinal reasons. Would probably help with a cold or act as a potent detox (that’s just something I personally found from experience, though there are studies about oolong generally being a detox agent).

I also know for certain that J-Tea’s descriptions are accurate, making them a vendor I will certainly try more of.

The leaves look nothing like an oriental beauty. They’re all black, and don’t have that mixed “calico” tea look. I did do a quick rinse. The tea liquor becomes colored very fast, like puerh-fast, which surprised me.

This is an unusual type of tea, for sure…But I wasn’t a huge fan. I also did get a note of green peppers when I first brewed this tea, some black pepper, there was also an earthiness, some mushroom-y notes, and a lot of clay/pottery…A chalky flavor without the dry texture, if that makes sense (ETA: this is called “minerality”, duh). I’ll definitely try this again when this cold passes. I’ll be brewing a lot of flavored teas until then, I guess.